How Many Positions Should Our Recruiters Be Filling?

Are there industry averages for how many positions a recruiter should fill every month/quarter/year?
&#8212;<i>I'm CEO, but I Don't Know, services, Mississauga, Ontario</i>

March 13, 2012

Dear CEO Who Doesn't Know:

This information is not formally tracked and reported by employers to external benchmarking organizations. Essentially, there are too many variables that affect the number of "fills" by recruiters, including:

o Whether recruiters are doing end-to-end recruiting vs. sourcing in support of hiring managers at a single location or multiple locations.

Standard recruiting performance metrics that are tracked and reported for benchmarking are:

• Average time to fill an open position, which will vary by level of position, location and available talent supply/demand.

• Average cost per hire.

• Quality of hire, which is linked to retention and performance metrics or ratios of candidates presented and interviewed.

The bottom line? If your goal is to improve recruiting performance, start with an assessment of your organization's practices and metrics. This will identify the underlying processes, systems and strategies being used and pinpoint significant gaps.

These steps help you determine what the vision for recruiting performance should be, based on realistic and achievable improvement goals. Once this is known, you can begin to make improvements (whether streamlining the interview process or improving the quality of talent through a more strategic use of social media). Finally, measuring incremental improvements against your target goals enables you to benchmark for recruiting performance.

LEARN MORE: "Quality of fill" is an emerging recruitment metric for a growing number of companies.

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.

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